Opening Contrast

An important point to understand with major openings is the distinction between what is the opening itself and what are its side-effects. Purification and experiences can accompany realizations, energy openings, and related expansions. But those accompaniments fade out. True shifts remain after the side-effects fade.

However, before awakening, there isn’t a stable platform of being so openings can be inclined to get overshadowed by the ego’s dynamics. We fall back into the dust and shadow or the energy isn’t stable yet.

After awakening is established, new openings don’t fade away. Then, the side-effects fade leaving just the opening.

However, there’s another important detail that can be missed. The initial opening plus side-effects may create a high contrast, very distinctive experience. After the dust settles, it can seem like we’ve lost the opening.

But instead, you’ve adapted to the shift. Within 3-4 hours, the awake physiology can adapt to major shifts. The mind may not have digested the experience enough to give it words, but the opening itself is now being embodied.

For example, we may come to feel larger than the universe. At first we feel hugely stretched and expanded and it’s a big deal. But if we can sustain it, the contrast fades and the expansion remains. We no longer feel stretched but if we pause and look, there we are beyond the universe. That cognition? Still there to refer back to. The new reality? Still here, quietly now. That new level of bliss? Still here, more quietly.

What was at first high contrast now seems normal and ordinary. But if we stop and look, it’s still there. The opening is abiding.

It’s usually wise to give it a few days to ensure that we do sustain it long term. But if the platform is stable, we shift into a mode of progressive growth that keeps building and building.

Where once we lived a life of passing experiences, now we live a life of continual growth.
Davidya

9 Responses to Opening Contrast

Thank you for this post. I have confusion in distinguishing between realization and just “adulting, maturing, developing compassion and becoming a better person”. For e.g., I am more and more able to able to see each person as Rick Archer says “sense organs of the divine”. So my treating everyone as imbued with dignity has improved. I am less judgy about what they do, who they are etc. because I know at some level it is just the divine expressing itself. I still react to unethical behavior but even then I pause and am aware that it is their “upadhi” or conditioning expressing itself and my reaction to them is also a conditioning. So this just seems to be maturity and empathy. I suspect that it is a realization too at some level. So how do I distinguish? I had some unskilled role modeling from my birth family so there is a lot of room for improvement.

Hi K
In that it’s useful to recognize different types of “realization.”

There are for example mental recognitions or aha’s. There are deeper recognitions of the intellect or intuition.

But in the sense of Self Realization or God Realization, it is a recognition one is. I am That.

This is not a recognition of the mind or intellect but a recognition of the Self, of consciousness itself. It is a change in our sense of being or existence.

As may be obvious, this is a much larger shift than a mental recognition. Although many smaller recognition are part of the journey.

In the sense you’re describing, there has been an inner recognition that allows you to shift the behavior that follows. It’s not a strain or fakery to behave this way. However, there are much deeper layers of this that can unfold.

Yes, almost everyone has birth family challenges, some of which are passed down ancestrally. Still discovering some of those.

It is very natural to react to unethical behaviour. Sometimes it is appropriate to respond. But it’s good to be conscious enough to make that choice and to put it down afterwards.

This was a timely article for me as I have been musing about this subject for some time now. I recognize that there is so much interference from the ego and its difficult to shift into more permanent states when the mind is always directing the experience. This article seems to put it more into perspective for me. Thank you.

Keep in mind that it’s not something you “do” to shift. Any doing is inherently mind with ego entanglements. What causes the shift is when Self wakes up to itself. This requires just a moment to see itself clearly. And that happens when we let go deeply enough, when we allow or surrender just for a moment.

But this allowing is not a doing. It’s a non-doing. It is so very simple, the mind misses it. 🙂

David,
Thanks for the reminder. This is my experience and it is more than I thought it was. I have gotten lost in the energetics of it and the mind trying to remember it. Now I can relax into “the field” whenever I want to.

Love this blog, it has made me think about my first encounter with Amma I had been meditating for quite a while before meeting her and I had a realization that has stuck with me it felt like Kundalini was moving from my feet to my head then an opening happened and I was in bliss for hours. Every time I saw her hug someone, I saw myself and emptiness with bliss. This bliss is always there under all of life’s ordinary experiences. It feels like a seed that’s growing and being watered each day.